Chapter 38: The Threat of a New Normal…

Excited by the ringing of her doorbell, Janet ran in short stunted steps towards the front; it was the kind of run that children did when they were happy and in a hurry but didn’t want to seem too excited. She was so excited she actually let me out of her sight for an instant. Not that I was going to run; I wouldn’t have made it far. I’d need a step stool and tip toes to even reach the doorknobs of her place.

As Muffet Littles played on, I closed my eyes and hung my head. I would have sworn that the cartoon was called “Muffet Babies”. Was I going crazy? Was I being gaslit or something? Was this hypnosis? If I was being hypnotized, would I even know it? This couldn’t be a hypno-cartoon though. Janet had watched it right with me. Right?
Then the thought, like death, like a cancer diagnosis creeped into my mind: What if Maturosis was real? What if it had always been Muffet Littles and I just didn’t notice it or I was remembering things differently? What if all the bullshit that the quasi-pediatrician had said was at least somewhat accurate?

In the stories, the Amazon detective Hemlock Sholmes said that when you rule out the impossible, all that’s left is the possible; even if it was super improbable. Granted, that logic was often put to use to justify that such and such Little deserved to be in diapers or a Tweener committed the crime and needed spanking and to be sent to some kind of etiquette school; but still…

What if I really was regressing into an adult sized baby? To the Amazons I was already a baby sized adult. What if the madness of Amazons… wasn’t? What if I was the one going mad? What if at least some Littles; Littles like Ivy, or Amy, or even Chaz; did start to have their biology turn on them and their brain chemistry alter to simulate what to the Amazons was no older than two?

What if I was one of those Littles? It was absurd.

And yet…

Loud, girlish squeals and giggles made their way back to my ears. The resultant sigh was a low growl of frustration and exasperation. My life had metamorphosed from a lifelong physical crisis to a series of existential ones. Not exactly a trade up.

Speaking of existential crises, I relaxed my bladder and wet myself then and there. Outside of my crib in the middle of the night, pissing myself while alone was the closest I felt I was going to get to privacy. To wet in privacy or wet in front of others; that was the only question I was allowed to ask.
I felt the wetness be quickly wicked away from my skin and my bladder sing out in pleasure and relief while my penis, stupid thing that it was, smiled at the fresh warmth; a localized and very intimate shower and sponge bath. It felt awful to my brain; but acceptable to my body. How long before brain and body were more in sync? Quietly, I didn’t like the odds of my body rejecting what was forced on it more than my mind coming to accept it.

I opened my eyes and watched the wet patch start to form on the front of the diaper; right below the landing zone; just beneath the smiling rainbow colored monkeys holding their balloons. I felt and saw the plastic wrinkle and distort slightly as the core absorbed my waste and the pulp bulged and expanded in places and bunched up in others. It was subtle, to be sure, but I could tell. At a glance, it would look like nothing. If there was even a single layer of clothing to cover the padding, it would be almost impossible to tell. Wet enough to swell slightly, not nearly enough to sag or droop. Most things that an Amazon would dress me in wouldn’t even conceal the dry bulk of the diaper; surely they wouldn’t notice the slightest increase in mass.

Could real babies tell? Would knowing make me feel any better?

Heavy footsteps signaled Janet’s return. Her eyes still had the same quiet crazy as they had moments before, an addict swimming in the drug of their choice. The giant beside her had a different, more familiar glint in her face- a junkie who hadn’t gotten her fix: Raine Forrest eyes.

It wasn’t Raine Forrest beside Janet, however. Seeing the school receptionist just then would have caused me to upchuck the morning’s cereal. Only thing worse might have been Brollish…or Beouf (but for completely different reasons).

As near as I can tell, the ideal aesthetic of Amazon Beauty (for women anyways) revolves around an exaggerated form of motherhood. Big breasts, but bigger hips. I’d later learn that Amazon women were just as likely to pad their hips as much as their bras. Hair is often grown long, but can be tied back and worn in a bun or a ponytail to look sporty or professional, or let down and worn big.

The woman that walked in with Janet did not fit that mold. Almost no hips. Small breasts (for an Amazon, still bigger than my face), short cropped hair; super skinny jeans and a T-shirt. An Amazonian tomboy. A rare sight indeed. Only Brollish looked quite so skinny and that’s because Brollish was a skeleton wearing someone else’s skin held together in a pantsuit.

If some of the more wingnut conspiracy theories on MistuhGwiffin.web held any water, this new addition might have been the mythical Little hit with a growth ray. Back in highschool and college, lots of Little girls would dress like this; some would say daring the giants to dress them up in pink and lavender frills.
It’s what Cassie looked like when we first met…

Being less than perfectly Mommy Femme Shiek, didn’t make the newcomer any less baby crazy.

“AWWWWWWW!” the stranger squealed. “He’s even cuter in person!”

Before I had a chance to react, I was overshadowed, scooped up and hugged just a bit too hard. “JANET?!”

“Jessica!” Janet’s rebuke didn’t sound quite so forceful; there was more than a hint of laughter in her tone. “You’re scaring him! Stranger danger!”

Instead of being put down, I was handed off to Janet. “Oh, my bad! Poor thing!” Now forced at eye level with her, the strange Amazon waved at me; all wrist. “Hi! I’m Jessica! Your Mommy’s been friends with me for a long long time!”

I bit down on my tongue as the conversation, and me, moved back to the sofa; the two Amazons on the cushions and me on Janet’s lap. “Hi.” I crossed my arms over my chest. Janet wrapped an arm around my belly button.

“You can call me Auntie Jessica,” the new woman said. She looked over my head and back up to Janet. “If that’s okay, I mean.”

“I don’t mind it,” Janet said. “You’re like a sister to me.”

“Why yes Clark, you can call this someone Auntie if you’re comfortable with it,” said no one.

“I’m sorry, I hugged you without asking first, that must have been scary.” Jessica said back to me. Her voice was more measured and high pitched than when she was talking to Janet. Typical. “It’s just like I already feel like I know you. Your Mommy has already told me so much about you these last few months.”

My face turned to stone. “Janet hasn’t told me a thing about you.” Another stray puzzle piece clicked into place. “Months?”

Janet cleared her throat. I got the hint. Jessica didn’t. “Yeah. You’re the ex-teacher, right?” The “ex” was a punch straight down into my gullet. She looked at Janet. “He’s still calling you by your first name?”

“It’s something we’re working on…” Janet said. “He was calling me Mommy just a few minutes before you came. Drank his ba-ba all up, too.” I squished a little bit as she bounced me slightly on her lap.

My ex-friend had been telling the truth of course. Thrice in as many days I’d manipulated her by pushing the Mommy button (with varying degrees of success). Right now, then? In front of this stranger whom my former co-worker had apparently told so much about me; she was Janet. My pride, weak as it was, still surged and receded like waves on a beach.

The fact of trauma is that no one recovers in one fell swoop. No one breaks all at once, either. In those early days I was breaking and recovering in bits and pieces and in different places simultaneously. A cut would open up on my soul here, while my psyche was still knitting itself up there, just before the stitches on my identity ripped open but after the scars on my ego had calcified.

“Jaaaaaaanet…!” I whined, and caught Janet’s friend casting her a slightly dubious look. Janet stopped bouncing me. I didn’t need to see her face to feel the subtle shifts in her body. Embarrassment. Disappointment

A nasty impulse jiggled around in my brain. I remembered another safe old cartoon I’d watched in my actual childhood. One about an amazing singing and dancing frog with a hat and cane that would only ribbit when anyone but its owner was around. I could be that frog; call my captor “Mommy” only when we were alone or around inconsequential folks.

I’d had plenty of bratty pre-schoolers whose parents insisted that their monsters were cherubs at home. It might be karmic justice to put Janet through the same experience. She wanted to be a mother, after all. Or maybe that was the mutating brain chemistry of a not-quite fictional maturity condition justifying infantile impulses.

Shit. This had to be how mindfucking and going native started…